The Patient Portal (or Client Portal if preferred) is the website that your patients can log into directly to access records that you are sharing with them, upload information to share with you, request appointments online (if allowed by your clinic), read and send secure messages, etc. Patients that self-register online set up their Patient Portal login in the registration form. Patients that are manually added to Cerbo by clinic staff would be invited via email to set up their Portal login.
This section of System Settings allows you to customize which specific functions and pages your patients can access via the Patient Portal. As well as to customize the instructions and options on specific pages.
General
These settings affect all pages in the portal:
- How you refer to the people you serve ("Patient" or "Client")
- The name of the portal (such as "Patient Portal", "Client Portal", or "Member Portal")
- The name of your clinic or practice, as it appears throughout the portal
- Whether the portal should show your address
- Whether to collect health insurance coverage information
Note that there is a separate place to manage certain specific
Login Page
The login page is what patients will see when they first navigate to your Patient Portal and are prompted to login. You can customize the instructions on that page, as well as renaming the links below the login fields (for patients to use to reset their password, get a username reminder, set up their portal account for the first time as a returning patient, or self-register online as a new patient).
Home Page & Menu
Use these settings to customize the portal's landing page. The welcome message is the text that appears at the top of the portal homepage. It is a great place to put bulleted instructions, especially for new patients, indicating their important to do items on the patient portal. You can add links within the text to specific portal pages, if desired, for their ease of navigation.
You can also customize the header for the right-hand navigational menu to include or omit the patient's name and, if it's included, show the patient's first name or nickname.
Portal Pages
The following portal pages can be made available (or hidden) for your patients. There is online help available to patients with general information. But because the portal is highly configurable, the instructions include a warning that the page they see might differ in details from the defaults that are described.
- My Account Details
- Secure Messages
- My Appointments
- Invoices & Payment
- Forms & Questionnaires
- Labs & Documents
- My Vitals
- My Medications
- My Supplements
- My Allergies
- My Vaccine Record
- My Pharmacies
- My Care Team
- My Visit Summaries
- Video Education
My Account Details
If enabled, patients can use the My Account Details page to securely view and update personal information, photo, and insurance details.
You can customize which patient information/ demographics fields show on the Patient Portal for patients to be able to add or update their own information.
- Fields like Driver's License, pronouns, race/ ethnicity, billing address, time zone are optional, and you can choose whether to show or hide these fields on the My Account Details page.
- Home address and phone number fields will always be shown on this page.
- Certain core identifying information is not shown or editable on the Patient Portal, like the patient's name, email address, and date of birth. To update that information, the patient would need to contact the office directly.
Certain sections of the My Account Details page can be shown or hidden, based on the clinic's preferences regarding which information to collect from patients. The sections that may be shown or hidden on this page are:
- Emergency contact - patients can add one or more emergency contacts here. Once those are accepted via the Patient Portal queue, they will appear as relationships to non-patients in the Relationships block of their patient chart.
- Profile photo - patients can add or edit their profile photo. This can also be set to be a nudge/ harassment item, meaning that patients who do not yet have a profile photo will see an exclamation mark on the My Account Details menu item, and a hover over prompt to add a profile photo.
- Power of attorney - patients can add a power of attorney name and address/ phone number. Once that is accepted via the Patient Portal queue, it will appear as a relationship to a non-patient in the Relationships block of their patient chart.
- Insurance information - patients can add or edit their insurance information and/ or images of their insurance card. Missing insurance information can also be set to be a nudge/ harassment item, meaning that patients who do not yet have insurance information entered will see an exclamation mark on the My Account Details menu item, and a hover over prompting them to add this information. Once added and accepted via the Patient Portal queue, insurance card images are saved with the patient's profile photo in their patient chart.
Contact Preferences
The "Contact Preferences" section on the My Account Details page allows patients to designate that they opt in or out of emails and SMS/ text messages. This is intended to allow them to communicate their preferences for non-medical automated notifications, such as informational, educational, or marketing messages. Typically, it would not be considered to apply to things like appointment notifications and reminders, notifications about a new secure message, notifications about a new encounter summary, etc.
If an opt in or out designation is made in this section, that shows in their Patient Information block of their chart, and is included in the Advanced Patient filtered search export. An opt out designation is informational only. It does not block messages from being sent from their Cerbo chart, or prevent appointment notifications/ reminders from going out.
You can customize the wording for the marketing email/ SMS opt in/ out using System Settings so that your patients best understand what this opt in/ out does.
^ Return to Portal Pages
Secure Messages
If enabled, this page can allow patients to send secure electronic messages to, and read secure messages from, the clinic. You can customize the instructions/ prompts on the Secure Messages page.
You can also place limitations on patients' ability to send secure messages:
- Disable patients' ability to send secure messages - this setting would apply for ALL patients, and would allow them to read past secure messages but not send secure messages. Some clinics may use this across the board, if they prefer for patients to communicate with the clinic some other way. Or some may use this to temporarily turn off patients' secure message sending, for example over a period when the clinic is closed.
- Require valid payment information on file to be able to send secure messages - to use this, you must use integrated merchant processing with Cerbo. Only patients who have a payment method on file would be able to send secure messages. This can be useful, for example, if there may be a fee for time spent by the clinic in reviewing and responding to messages.
- Limit the number of characters in a message - use this setting to limit the length of secure messages. For reference, 250 characters is a couple of sentences, and 500 characters is a medium length paragraph. The most commonly used limitations are between 500 and 1000 characters.
- Limit the number of secure messages that patients can send in a period of time - this setting can be used to limit patients to sending only a specific number of secure messages in a period of time. If set, that is a rolling limitation. Meaning that if a patient sends one secure message on Saturday, and then 3 on Sunday, they will be able to send 1 more the following Saturday. This limitation applies regardless of if the patient is sending a new message or responding to a message from the clinic. It can cause frustration for patients. So we generally recommend using other mechanisms to control secure message volumes, like charging for time spent in responding, or asking patients to schedule an appointment for inquiries that require more than 5 minutes of a provider's time.
By default, patients can select which staff member to direct the secure message to. If a specific staff member is selected, the incoming secure message will arrive already assigned to that person in the EHR Patient Portal Queue.
You can set which staff members should be massageable, and how their name should appear, in the staff members' user profiles under Admin > Manage > Users. However, if you do not want patients to select a specific staff member at all, but instead will triage these on the EHR side, you can turn off this option in System Settings using "Show options for 'which staff member would you prefer to respond to this message?'" Alternately, if you want to force them to make a selection, you can disallow the "No preference" option.
If desired, you can include a required acknowledgement for the patient to check to be able to send the secure message. This is a good place for an acknowledgement that there may be a charge that applies, or that they may be requested to schedule an appointment, for example.
When secure messages come in, those appear in the Patient Portal Queue in the EHR. If you are ultra part time and not necessarily logging into your EHR often, you can enable an email notification for new secure messages as well.
^ Return to Portal Pages
My Appointments
view upcoming appointments, and (if enabled) request and cancel appointments online.
^ Return to Portal Pages
Invoices & Payment
securely add payment information, view the account balance, statement, invoices, and receipts, and make a payment online.
^ Return to Portal Pages
Forms & Questionnaires
complete and submit requested consent forms and questionnaires.
^ Return to Portal Pages
Labs & Documents
view lab results and other documents that are shared with the patient, and upload outside records or documents to share with the clinic.
^ Return to Portal Pages
My Vitals
view and add vitals readings, such as blood pressure, height, and weight.
^ Return to Portal Pages
My Medications
review and update medications and request prescription refills.
^ Return to Portal Pages
My Supplements
review and update supplements.
^ Return to Portal Pages
My Allergies
view and add allergies.
^ Return to Portal Pages
My Vaccine Record
view, print, and update vaccination record.
^ Return to Portal Pages
My Pharmacies
designate or change preferred and primary pharmacies.
^ Return to Portal Pages
My Care Team
provide information about other clinics they are working with.
^ Return to Portal Pages
My Visit Summaries
view summaries of past clinic visits, including recommendations and follow up information, where applicable.
^ Return to Portal Pages
Video Education
view videos that have been shared specifically with that patient, or access a general video library that the clinic maintains.
Additional portal settings
Some additional portal settings are available separately. Choose Pt Portal > Patient Portal Settings to configure notices to all patients, and manage your online appointment cancellation policy. See Allow Patients to Cancel Appointments.
My Account Details
Use these settings to customize the instructions that appear at the top of the page, and choose which details to include.
- Choose which sections and fields to show on this page.
You can provide a text message to appear above the "Photo Upload" and "Insurance Information" sections, if they are enabled. If you have defined such a message, you can view and edit it here.
- Missing insurance information should be a "harassment item" [No | Yes]
When Yes, Insurance Information is a required field on this form. The system reminds or nudges the patient by marking the field with an exclamation-mark icon (!), until they supply the information.
Secure Messages
Secure messaging is a secure, encrypted alternative to email for electronic communication of non-urgent requests. If you offer this service, patients can access it through this page. Use these settings to configure the appearance of the page, the message parameters, and the messaging behavior.
- You can choose to limit the number of characters (including spaces) in a message, in 250-character increments up to 1500. 500 characters is 72-125 words, or a medium length paragraph.
- You can choose to limit the number of messages (1-10) that can be sent within a number of calendar days.
- If you charge for time spent responding to messages, you can choose how to inform patients and require an acknowledgement.
- Show options for "Which staff member would you prefer to respond to this message?"
Enable this feature to allow patients to direct their message specifically to any of the EHR users that are set to be available for patient messages in their user profiles.- A user can customize their display name for secure messaging in their user profiles. For example, a practice admin could show up as Billing Questions for patients sending secure messages.
- Any messages that are directed to a specific user are automatically assigned to that user in the Patient Portal Queue on the EHR side.
- You can include "No Preference" in the list of who can respond. If selected, the secure message will not be assigned to any specific user in the Patient Portal Queue on the EHR side.
- Send incoming message notifications to the intended recipient's email (if they have one on file) instead of the central/clinic email address
A EHR user's email can be added in their user profile. Use this setting to alert the specific user via email when they receive a secure message, as opposed to emailing the clinic's main email address.
My Appointments
Enable this page to allow patients to request appointments online, and see the status of upcoming appointments. Use these settings to customize the appearance and behavior of appointment-related options. See also Allow Patients to Cancel Appointments.
Patients select from a list of providers to request appointments. Potential providers are those that (1) have a calendar (as set in their user profile), and (2) are selected as one of the "Providers who use this appointment type" for any of the appointment types under Admin > Manage > Schedule Types.
- Message to be shown if there is no appointment availability
This is the message that the patient sees if the selected provider does not have upcoming availability, based on their work schedules in Cerbo.
- Require that a patient have valid payment information on file to be able to access online appointment requests
When this option is enabled, you can edit the default message that appears if they attempt to make an appointment when they do not have the required information on file. - Message patients should see if their ability to request appointments is turned off (this is a setting in their chart)
If you disable the My Appointments page for your Portal, or have not set up work schedules, no patients can request appointments online. If you do allow online appointment requests, you can turn off this feature individually for specific patients.
- Show a patient's upcoming appointments with resources
Resources are generally rooms or chairs that are scheduled independently. Set up resources under Admin > Manage > Users. See Adding a Resource.
- Show an appointment's end time
You can hide the end time from the patient's view if you want to add a buffer or transition time to appointment durations.
- Send email notifications to the clinic for new appointment requests
When this option is enabled, you can edit the email address to be used for notifications.
Website-Embedded Appointment Requests
Enable this feature to create a link to an appointment-request form, which you can then embed in your clinic website. This is typically used for prospective patients who do not yet have a patient portal login, allowing them to request a meet-and-greet appointment or exploratory consult directly from the clinic website.
Use this section to construct and customize the form that will be available through the link, and customize the behavior when a form is submitted.
Invoices & Payments
Enable this page to allow patients to make online payments through the portal. Use the settings to manage the appearance of the page and configure your online payment policy.
- Missing payment information should be a "harassment item" [No | Yes]
When Yes, Payment Information is a required field on this form. The system reminds or nudges the patient by marking the field with an exclamation-mark icon (!), until they supply the information.
Forms & Questionnaires
Enable this page to provide individual patients with online forms and questionnaires through the portal.
Use Documents settings to enable a Patient Portal tab in Admin > Practice Documents, where you can choose documents to upload and share with all patients.